Canada's tax cuts imports of China aluminium extrusions

Canada has imposed a tax of between nearly 40 and 119 percent on imports of Chinese aluminium extrusions, keeping the Chinese product from going into the country, Benson Wu, sales director at Kam Kiu Aluminium Group, which makes such products, said.

"(The tax) will ban Chinese products from going into that market," Wu told an aluminium conference in the Chinese city of Sanya on Hainan island.

Wu told the conference that Canada requested the tax on the imports of the Chinese product after it had ruled that the "Government of China is substantially determining the domestic prices of aluminium extrusions in China."

"Our production activities do not have links with the government. The government does not set our prices," Wu said on Wednesday.

Wen Xianjun, vice chairman of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, which is state-funded and represents metals producers in China, said the Chinese government was unable to control prices charged by aluminium products producers, which were mostly privately owned.

Wu and Wen did not provide figures for the exports to Canada nor say what portion of China's total aluminium product exports they made up.

Producers of aluminium products in China are already struggling with weak demand, both in domestic and overseas markets, due to the global financial crisis.

In previous years, overseas buyers placed orders in October-November for shipments in the coming quarter. But many products plants have not received a lot of export orders for the first quarter of next year, industry sources said.

The Chinese government, keen to boost exports to buoy the domestic economy, may consider reinstating value-added tax rebates on exports of extrusions.

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